Promising Practices

The Promising Practices database informs professionals and community members about documented approaches to improving community health and quality of life.

The ultimate goal is to support the systematic adoption, implementation, and evaluation of successful programs, practices, and policy changes. The database provides carefully reviewed, documented, and ranked practices that range from good ideas to evidence-based practices.
Learn more about the ranking methodology.

Submit a Promising Practice

Healthy Homes/Healthy Families (Georgia)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Families, Rural

Goal: Healthy Homes/Healthy Families aims to help rural residents of Southwest Georgia make healthy behavior changes.

Healthy Hometown Restaurant Initiative (Louisville, KY)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Teens, Adults, Families

Goal: The goal of the Healthy Hometown Restaurant Initiative is to encourage Louisville restaurants to provide and promote healthier meal options.

Impact: Participants that have volunteered for the Healthy Hometown Restaurant Initiative include 16 restaurants with 33 locations and one caterer.

Healthy Kids Express Dental Van (St. Louis, Missouri)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Teens, Urban

Goal: The mission of Healthy Kids Express Dental is to improve oral healthcare in children through education on the importance of regular brushing, flossing, and using fluoride as well as through restorative treatments when necessary.

Impact: During the 2014-2015 school year, children pre-Kindergarten through 7th grade saw their average score on a dental knowledge test rise from 64.7% on the pretest to 72.1% on the posttest.

Healthy Kids Express Screening and Immunization Program (St. Louis, Missouri Metro Region)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Teens, Families, Urban

Goal: The mission of HKES&I is to increase access to needed healthcare for children. This is accomplished through the goal of identifying children who need further follow-up, particularly for hearing and vision problems, and to connect them to those services.

Impact: Healthy Kids Express Screening and Immunization program is successful in providing evidence based care to low-income populations and for connecting those identified with screening needs to needed follow-up care.

Healthy Living Project (HLP)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Women, Men, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: To eliminate or reduce sexual transmission risk behavior, to eliminate or reduce injection drug use risks and to improve health care practices and quality of life among people living with HIV.

Healthy Places Coalition (California)

Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Toxins & Contaminants, Children, Adults, Families

Goal: The goal of the Healthy Places Coalition is to advance public health involvement in land-use and transportation planning in order to ensure that all neighborhoods in California promote the opportunity to live a healthy life.

Healthy U (Kansas City, MO)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Teens, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: The goal of Healthy U is to work with several community groups to provide healthy snacks as well as education on nutrition and fitness to students and their families at University Academy.

Impact: The percentage of screened students who were overweight fell from 45.9% in the 2011-2012 school year to 36.9% in the 2011-2012 school year. Over 75% of participants in both Teen Eats and Family Dinners demonstrated a positive behavior change.

HeartStrings (Dane, Wisconsin)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Alternative Medicine, Older Adults

Goal: HeartStrings aims to enhance the quality of life for individuals with special needs. Through regularly-recurring, interactive sessions, the MSO’s Rhapsodie Quartet addresses the physical, emotional, cognitive, and social needs of hundreds of individuals each year in a comfortable and familiar setting.

HeartStrings mission statement is as follows:

1) To enhance the quality of life of underserved populations through live, interactive, and exceptional quality musical experiences that are informed by the American Music Therapy Association’s Standards of Practice.

2) To bring meaningful arts experiences directly to participants in a comfortable and
familiar setting.

3) To provide a valuable resource for facilities that serve aging populations, adults with dementia, and individuals with disabilities, or long-term illnesses.

Impact: HeartStrings has reached over 3,200 individuals with disabilities, long-term illness, and assisted-living needs, as well as aging adults with dementia since its start in 2006.

Help Educate to Eliminate Diabetes (HEED) (New York)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Diabetes, Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: The goal of Project HEED is to lessen the incidence of diabetes in ethnic minority communities through peer-led educational interventions focusing on weight loss.

High-School Based Screening for Chlamydia and Gonorrhea (Philadelphia, PA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens

Goal: The goal of this program is to educate high school students regarding the risks of STDs, prevention methods, and the need for testing if sexually active.

An Effective Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

The program description includes at a minimum: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program implementation steps, and outcomes that have demonstrated program success and/or promise in achieving the program goal in one or more localities.
The results from an evaluation of the program include quantitative measures of improvement in outcome of interest (i.e. increase in voter registration, not just delivery of voter registration drive) and/ or the outcome measure is increased or improved compared to the baseline measurement or the control group but the difference is not statistically significant.

A Good Idea meets the following HCI criteria:

The program description includes: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program funding source, program implementation steps and outcomes.
The program evaluation is limited to descriptive measure(s) of success/accomplishment (i.e., program participation rates, number of services/education sessions/radio messages provided). Note: oftentimes, the program has been newly implemented and a program evaluation has not yet been conducted. Programs that have not yet been evaluated, but which show promise in improving health or quality of life, are classified as Good Ideas until an evaluation is conducted.

An Evidence-Based Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

The program description includes at a minimum: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program implementation steps, and outcomes that have demonstrated program success in achieving the program goal in one or more localities.
The results from an evaluation of the program include quantitative measures showing improvement in the outcome(s) of interest after the implementation of the program (i.e. increase in smoking cessation, not just the delivery of a smoking cessation program). The outcome measure(s) is/are compared at relevant time periods before and after the intervention or program implementation. Alternatively, the evaluation study compares the outcome(s) between an intervention group and an appropriate control group.
The study is of peer-review quality and presents numbers in a scientific manner; measurements of precision and reliability are included (e.g. confidence intervals, standard errors), results from statistical tests show a significant difference or change in the outcome measure(s), and relevant point estimates and p-values are presented. Note: if the results from an evaluation of a program are presented in a scientific manner and the outcome measure is improved compared to the baseline measurement or the control group but the difference is not statistically significant, the practice is classified as effective and not evidence-based.